FULLERTON – He is familiar with the gym which, indeed, is not a pavilion or a coliseum or an arena. It is as basic a gym as you’ll find in Division I.

“I played open gym in here,” Dedrique Taylor said Wednesday. “I was in here with Miles Simon, Reggie Geary. There was good basketball in Orange County then and everybody played here. Johnny McWilliams is one of my best friends. I know this place.”

He knows it and yet he was drawn to it, beating out Reggie Theus and what Athletic Director Jim Donovan called “maybe 25 qualified candidates” to become the Titans’ next men’s coach.

At the same function, ex-associate USC coach Daron Park was just as enthusiastic when introduced as the Titans’ new women’s coach.

Too often Cal State Fullerton has had to restock those shelves simultaneously. The women’s program hasn’t done much since Genia Miller, and the men’s team loses its three top scorers and has gone to the NCAA Tournament once since 1978.

Only two CSF head coaches have left with career winning records, and only Bob Dye, in 1980, left for another Division I head coaching job (Boise State). Five of the past six have been fired.

Taylor is different because he is neither part of Titan tradition nor is moving up in class. He is similar to UC Irvine’s Russell Turner, who came from a rich background and was ready to cultivate a program without perks, fans or pedigree.

Style of play? “The first six seconds of the shot clock will be theirs,” Taylor said. “After that, we’re going to run our offense and work for a good shot. We want to play as fast as we can play well.”

Defense? “We’re going to start with good, solid man-to-man fundamentals,” he said, “and then we’re also going to learn how to play a zone and see if we can score out of it. What I really want to do is to take away what you do well and make you go to second and third options.”

Defense is a specialty of Herb Sendek, the Arizona State head coach, and also of Ed Taylor, Dedrique’s father and coach at Pomona High.

“We’d play eight defenses in the first half,” Ed said. “And then we’d figure which one worked the best, and play that one in the second half.”

But Taylor also promised a two-hour study hall, four days a week, and said his players would have to work hard “to get off study table.”

Both of Taylor’s parents were teachers in Pomona.

“He has a lot of structure,” Ed said. “If you go over to his house, you’ll see what I mean. Everything is in its place. The thing I’m proud of is that he’s passionate. Everything he said today, you’ll see it happen.”

Despite the open gym days, Taylor was better known as a football player. He played quarterback, although Hawaii and other schools — “most of them would be Mountain West schools today,” he said — envisioned him as a safety.

He always preferred basketball, though, so he first went to Kings River JC. There, his roommate was Heath Schroyer, who later became the head coach at Portland State and is now an assistant at UNLV.

“We promised each other that, whichever one got a job first would hire the other one,” said Taylor, and that’s what Schroyer did in 2002.

Taylor was good enough as a freshman to lure interest from CSF coach Bob Hawking. But he went back to Kings River.

“And I blew out my knee in the fifth game of the season,” he said. “I remember it like yesterday. I came to catch it, turn and shoot. A lot of my body turned and shot. That part didn’t.”

He transferred to Armstrong State in Georgia and finished his career at UC Davis. He got his master’s degree and initially “tried to run” from the coaching life, looking for his own path. “But I realized, that’s who I am,” he said.

He was on the bench for three NCAA Tournaments, two at Nevada and one at Arizona State, and helped recruit Jahii Carson, Arizona State’s dynamic guard.

For the most part, the Big West and the West Coast Conference and their brethren are the entry levels for assistant coaches.

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